Flashie Thing
by Christine Morgan
Summary: Investigating alien artifacts and an old family mystery, Matt Bluestone runs afoul of government agents in sunglasses. #32 in an ongoing saga (note: #31 cannot be posted, sorry)


Flashie Thing   
by Christine Morgan   
christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org

* * *

  
Author's Note: the characters of Gargoyles are the property of Disney  
and used here without their knowledge or consent. The characters of a  
certain summer blockbuster are also used without the consent of their  
creators, and any resemblance to actual secret organizations is purely  
intentional! ; ) 

#32 in an ongoing saga; please note that #31, "On the Rocks," was   
removed from the web in accordance with the wishes of Spider   
Robinson.  
  


* * *

  
LITTLE HOLLOW, VERMONT.  
2:15 PM SUNDAY.   
  
A copper-colored Avalon, its license plate reading ILUMIN8,  
moved slowly through the snow-covered postcard-perfect town.  
The white-steepled church on one side of the square was  
balanced by the city hall (complete with statue of a soldier) on the  
other. The small businesses that ran the rest of the way around the  
square were all neat, all tidy, and all with sidewalks and steps carefully  
salted clean of ice.  
The sky was a misty blue-grey, with a few wispy clouds.  
Mares' tails and mackerel scales, Matt Bluestone thought. Uncle Ray's  
recipie for predicting rain or snow.  
Little Hollow was set against a backdrop of dense forest,  
white-flocked evergreens mingling with bare-branched trees dripping  
icicles. On the far side of town, the land rose as Prescott Hill, then  
sloped down to the lake.  
Yeah, good old Little Hollow. A far cry from New York. Not  
all that far geographically, but it might as well be on the far side of the  
moon.  
"It's so pretty," Edie said.  
He glanced over at his wife, sitting in the passenger seat with  
her hands folded over her bulging stomach. Theirs had been a civil  
ceremony, in the precinct courthouse. Officer Alvarez as his best man,  
Elisa as Edie's maid of honor. Nothing fancy, attended mostly by other  
cops. Cops, and of course Matt's mom.  
"You like it?"  
She nodded. "So clean, so quiet --"  
"So boring," he added. "I lived here until I was five, and then  
we came back every summer and every Christmas break, so it was like I  
never really got away until I went to college. Place hasn't changed  
much."  
"Why did you move to Manhattan?"  
Matt shrugged and braked to let a pair of boys with sleds go  
past, headed for Prescott Hill. At least, he assumed they were boys; they  
were bundled up so that only their noses were visible.  
"Our family's lived here just about forever." He chuckled a  
little, embarrassed. "I didn't tell you before, but that's Bluestone Lake.  
Dad was the first Bluestone to leave. The rest of the relatives couldn't  
believe it, that he'd want to teach in the city instead of here. Uncle Ray  
swore Dad would come to a bad end because of it."  
"And did he?"  
"That's the funny part," he said bitterly. "He would have been  
fine if he hadn't come back to Little Hollow that last summer ..."  
"He died here?"  
Matt paused, then said, "Yeah," in a slow and doubtful voice.  
"Car crash. He was hit by a drunk driver, or at least that's the official  
story."  
"Official story?"  
"See there?" He pointed. "That's the Lakeside Tavern, the only  
bar in town. The only bar for twenty miles, in fact. Rollie Duncan owns  
the place, and Rollie's been confiscating keys since at least 1960. He  
doesn't let drunks leave his place and get in their cars. But the cops said  
the guy who hit Dad came from the Lakeside."  
"You don't believe it, do you?"  
"Nope. I didn't as a kid, and I believe it even less now. The fire  
was so intense that they couldn't even identify him by dental records.  
Wouldn't let me or Mom see the body. They talked her into agreeing to  
a quick cremation."  
"But why would they lie?"  
"To cover up a murder," he said.  
She stared at him, but he only sensed that she did because his  
eyes were fixed on the road now, and his hands were tight on the  
steering wheel.  
He kind of hoped she would ask him about it, would make him  
talk about it even though he didn't want to. Didn't want to, but _needed_  
to. Needed to get it out of his system. It had been festering in there for  
fifteen years.  
She didn't ask, just fell silent and looked at the scenery as they  
turned off the main road onto Bluestone Lane. The going was a little  
trickier, even with snow tires on the Avalon. Uncle Ray had a pickup  
with a plow attachment, and kept the road clear all the way to the house.  
The road circled around the north end of Prescott Hill, giving  
them a good view of kids sledding and riding inner tubes down the  
slope. They soon came to a large rambling farmhouse, complete with  
barn and duckpond. It was surrounded by neatly-fenced fields, buried  
under pristine snow.  
"There it is," Matt said. "Home sweet home. That's my old  
room, second floor in the corner. After what happened with Dad, Mom  
didn't want to stay in the city anymore. I argued like crazy. I wanted to  
finish in the same school, which was where Dad used to teach. But  
Mom was so broken up, I finally just gave in. It was only for another  
couple years, anyway. Then I escaped to college."  
"So your mother lives here, with your uncle and his wife? Do  
they have children?"  
"Yeah, four. I think Aunt Lucy always rubbed Mom's nose in  
that a little, me being the only one Mom could have. None of them live  
at home anymore. My cousin Ray Jr. is stationed in the Gulf  
somewhere, Jack has an apartment over his auto shop in town, Peggy's  
over by Tashmore Pond with her husband, and Little Ed is in jail. Mom  
did her share of nose-rubbing when she heard about that."  
A tall man came out of the garage attached to the house and  
stood watching them come up the long gravel driveway. He wore a  
faded green and black plaid hunting jacket over jeans and work boots.  
His trademark Bluestone hair was more grey than red now, and there  
was a bald spot in the back as big as a tea saucer. His eyes, deeply  
nested in his leathery face, were flinty. He wiped his hands on a rag and  
tucked the rag into his hip pocket.  
"Uncle Ray," Matt confirmed. "Whatever you do, don't talk  
religion with him, okay?"  
"Why not?"  
"Because he's a Bible-thumping old fart, and if you so much as  
mention Zeus or Hades, he'll have a brain hemorrhage. We're off to a  
bad enough start, what with the baby being due in April and us only  
married in November."  
"Are you ever going to tell your family the truth about me?"  
"They'd call for the men in the white coats. I'm the only one in  
the whole family that's ever cared about the truth. Mom thinks you're an  
exchange student from Greece; let's just leave it at that." He parked at  
the foot of the porch steps and stepped out into the snowy dooryard.  
"Hi, Uncle Ray."  
"Matthew," he acknowledged with a slight bob of his head.  
Matt went around to open Edie's door, and helped her out. She  
wore her long dark hair in a coil of braid atop her head. Matt saw Uncle  
Ray taking in her olive complexion, her foreign features, her liquid-ink  
eyes.  
Ray Bluestone's flinty gaze flicked back to Matt, loaded with  
condemnation. Not as much as he'd have gotten if he'd come home with  
Elisa (or, better yet, Elisa's sexy cousin Nikki), but condemnation  
nonetheless.  
"This is --" for a scary moment he almost blurted her real  
name, but caught himself in time "-- Edie, my wife. Edie, this is my  
Uncle Ray."  
"Matt! Edie!" Gladys Bluestone flew out onto the porch,  
followed by her sister-in-law Lucy. Both of them were in aprons, their  
hands floured, and the smell of baking pies wafted out behind them.  
"You're early!"  
"The roads weren't as bad as I thought," Matt said, embracing  
his mother. "We made good time."  
She turned to Edie next, giving her a kiss on the cheek. "Let's  
get you in out of the cold, honey. There's coffee just brewing."  
Traditional gender roles in the country, Matt thought, as the  
women headed for the nice warm kitchen and left the menfolk to lug the  
suitcases in from the trunk.  
He paused at the top of the porch steps, his arms loaded down,  
and turned to look toward the lake. From here he could see a thick  
crescent of the ice-covered water, and the edge of the stand of trees  
known as Lost Dog Woods.  
The woods where even the worst hunter used to be able to bag  
a deer. The woods where Matt and his cousins used to play war in the  
summer's heat. The woods where John Bluestone had seen something  
that led to his death.  
Matt shivered, not entirely from the cold. Then, feeling Uncle  
Ray's impatient eyes upon him, he hurried into the house.   
  
* *   
  
LITTLE HOLLOW, VERMONT.  
1:00 PM MONDAY.  
  
As Edie was napping, Matt prowled restlessly through the  
house.  
He offered to help out, but Aunt Lucy shooed him from the  
kitchen and Uncle Ray only gave him an appraising, disdainful look  
before heading off to help their nearest neighbor with a generator.  
"If you're needing something to do," his mom suggested, "how  
about going up to the attic and bringing me down those boxes of baby  
things? I might as well start going over them now, seeing what needs  
mending and what's for the ragbag."  
Wearing an old sweater and a pair of jeans that weren't too far  
removed from the ragbag themselves, Matt went up and poked around  
the attic. Bare patches in the dust marked where the holiday decorations  
would go when they'd once again fulfilled their function downstairs. He  
barked his shin on a crate of his own old toys and stopped to rummage a  
little through the musty old memories.  
The Bluestone family was one that could never seem to throw  
anything away, no matter how old, how broken, how useless. The attic  
ran the entire length of the farmhouse, and the further back you went  
from the trapdoor, the older the relics got. Layers, generational,  
geologic. Dating back to the Civil War and beyond.  
He and his cousins had made occasional forays up here, even  
though Mom and Aunt Lucy were both dead-set against it. Either Peggy  
or Little Ed had always ratted on them, and then it had been a trip  
behind the woodshed for Ray Jr. and Jack. But never for Matt, whose  
father didn't believe in discipline by the strop. Of course, he'd paid for it  
later, getting pounded by his cousins for escaping their fate.  
Now that he was up here with permission, it didn't seem half so  
enticing. It was also a lot smaller than he remembered, a trick of  
perspective.  
The huge kid-eating spiders of his imagination turned out to be  
tiny and harmless. A single mouse skittered into hiding when he pulled  
the chain which lit the line of bare bulbs. That was it for the wildlife.  
He found the boxes of baby things, in the shadow of a wooden  
crib that looked terribly unsafe. He carried them one by one to the top  
of the attic stairs. On his last trip to get a box, he happened to look into  
one of the more awkward corners formed by an old highboy and a  
bedframe standing on end.  
There, on top of an upside-down milk crate, was a battered old  
shoebox with a lid that wouldn't quite close because of the two rolls of  
paper sticking out of it. And atop the shoebox was his father's hat.  
Matt set down the last box and stood for a minute or two, just  
looking. Then, treading carefully because that bedframe seemed ready  
to tip over and squash him at any time, he went over there and picked  
up the hat.  
It was an old leather cap, creased and shiny with wear, the  
plaid lining faded.  
He picked it up to assure himself that it was real. It was. Even  
had the initials J.B. sewn on the back.  
"Dad's hat?" he murmured, not even aware that he had spoken  
aloud. "What the hell ...?"  
Matt was sure his father had been wearing it the night of the  
crash, but was it real memory or the certainty of familiarity? Dad  
_always_ wore it, except on the rare occasions when he had to dress up  
fancy. It was almost as much a part of him as his red hair and hornrim  
specs. Matt had to strain his imagination to picture Dad _without_ the  
hat. It stood to reason that he would have been wearing it on that fateful  
night.  
He turned the hat back and forth in his hands, frowning. The  
leather felt mellow and somehow buttery beneath his fingers. There was  
a peculiar hot fluttering sensation just below his sternum, the feeling he  
always got when he was about to crack a big case or get hit with a  
revelation.  
He'd never believed the official story about his father's death,  
but over the years he had resigned himself to the fact that he was  
probably being paranoid. But, damn it, so much of what he used to be  
paranoid about had been proved true!  
The last time he'd tried it on, he had been a kid of no more  
than eleven or twelve, and it had slipped down over his eyes. Now it fit  
perfectly, and snugged down comfortably on his head.  
If he looked in a mirror, would he see his father's face looking  
back?  
That, for some reason, made him think of the weirdness during  
which he'd met Edie. He'd tried to put that all behind him. Strange  
enough to be married to a figure from Greek mythology, but the way  
that he'd had to go on that crazy Underworld quest to find her, and the  
way his subconscious had insisted on translating all the mythic  
characters into people and gargoyles he knew, that was something he  
really didn't like to dwell on. But hadn't there been something about his  
dad?  
Yes, there had. A hall of judgement, and John Bluestone had  
been one of the judges, along with Captain Chavez and Matt's former  
partner and fellow Illuminatus Martin Hacker. But Dad hadn't looked  
the way he did in Matt's memory. No, he looked as he would if he was  
still alive today.  
"That doesn't mean jack," Matt said, and this time he heard  
himself and was startled. "I was in that weird hypnotic trance. Anybody  
could have shown up. Dad, Uncle Ray, Dan Quayle, Wendy the  
Snapple Lady ... sure! My mind picked Dad, that's all."  
Except that wasn't all, and he knew it on a gut level that reason  
couldn't touch. There was someting quirky about Dad's death, he had  
always known it, and the hat proved it. It didn't _explain_ a thing, but it  
proved, at least to Matt, that he'd been right to be suspicious.  
Leaving the hat on, Matt lifted the showbox lid and peered  
inside. The rolled papers were copies of the Tashmore Daily News  
(Little Hollow had a weekly paper, mostly devoted to church bake sales  
and school functions). A charred rock. A litter of snapshots at the  
bottom.  
He took out the newspapers. July of 1983. Grainy photos on  
the front page. On the left, a smudge of light over the treetops. On the  
right, a bunch of men holding up the deflated remains of a weather  
balloon. The headlines spouted the same sort of cover-up crap that the  
Air Force always seemed to trot out in these cases.  
Matt dropped the papers and grabbed up the photos. He riffled  
the slick, thick, Polaroid squares through his fingers, gaping at the  
images even though he'd been pretty sure of what he was going to see.  
Lost Dog Woods, it had to be. And that had to be Cotter's  
Creek. He'd spent enough summers playing there to recognize it.  
He laid them out and puzzled them around until they were in  
some sort of order, then sat shaking his head as incredulous questions  
whizzed through his mind.  
Photo #1 -- dusk of a summer's day, Uncle Ray and Ray Jr.  
standing by a creek with a string of freshly-caught fish held up between  
them. Both Rays wore identical pursed, joyless, hurry-up-and-take-the-  
damn-picture expressions. High in the lefthand corner, just visible  
through the branches, was a whitish-green twinkle with a smeary  
comet's tail.  
Photo #2 -- a blurry view upward, leaves and boughs framing a  
darkening denim sky. The twinkle now grown to a pale blob with  
smudges of green along the sides.  
Photo #3 -- steam or smoke mostly obscuring the view of an  
object approximately as big as a minivan, one end buried in a churned  
mess of earth and uprooted trees, flames licking up from the point of  
impact.  
Photo #4 -- the cloven shell of the craft, broken open in great  
jagged chunks, alternating green and white running lights along the side  
but most of them now gone dark and dead.  
Photo #5 -- a close-up of something hanging out of the broken  
shell, something narrow and black and chitinous, something that ended  
in a bristle of claws as long and sharp as Ginsu knives.  
Matt blew out a long, slow whistle of amazement. "A crash,  
son of a bitch, he witnessed a crash-landing!"   
  
* *   
  
LITTLE HOLLOW, VERMONT.  
2:20 PM MONDAY.   
  
"I saw something, Matty, something that nobody's going to  
believe. I can't tell you now, because there's people who want to hush it  
up and I don't want to put you and your mother in danger."  
Matt stood on the porch, remembering those words his father  
had spoken to him. It was probably the worst thing he could have said  
to a kid who was already a conspiracy nut, because instead of scaring  
Matt, it had started a fire in his soul that still hadn't burned out.  
The dooryard was a slushy mire, and the sky was heavy and  
dark. The view he'd admired yesterday was now a depressing grey  
mess. He stared toward the woods but wouldn't have seen them even if  
they hadn't been obscured by the rain. His mind was miles and years  
away.  
His father, uncle, and cousin had come home late from their  
fishing trip, he recalled. He himself hadn't been able to join them  
because he'd been fighting off a throat infection, and had been sitting in  
the kitchen with a bowl of homemade chicken soup while Mom and  
Aunt Lucy fussed and worried. At last, they'd come in, and Uncle Ray  
had said something about ... something about ...  
He strove for it, and it came, in a flash of memory so clear that  
he could even feel the hard kitchen chair under him and taste the rich  
broth.  
"The fish weren't biting so they decided to hike over to Cotter's  
Creek," Matt said into the patter of the rain. "And they got turned  
around. Sure, and remember how even Aunt Lucy didn't buy that last  
bit? She used to boast about how nobody in town knew the woods  
better than her Ray. Remember how Dad looked? Like he was bursting  
with a secret. But Ray and his dad just looked tired, blank."  
He glanced up at the eaves, wondering if Edie was awake yet.  
He needed someone to bounce all of this off of. Mom and Aunt Lucy  
were out. The papers over the next few days had denounced the "UFO"  
as the oh-so-typical weather balloon, and anyone who claimed  
otherwise was ridiculed.  
Come to think of it, Edie wouldn't be the best sounding board  
either. Where she was from, lights in the sky were easy to explain. Zeus  
taking pot shots at someone, or Phaeton crashing his father's chariot.  
He thought of his partner, and almost went in to give her a call.  
But he held back, realizing with a grimace that while Elisa firmly  
believed in aliens because of some freaky experience she'd had on  
Easter Island, she also firmly believed that the Sentinel was protecting  
the planet. Ergo, there _couldn't_ be any other aliens.  
"Great," he muttered. "No help there, either."  
There was only one thing to do. He knew it probably wouldn't  
help, that any remaining evidence would have been obliterated by  
fifteen years of harsh Vermont winters. But he had to do it He had to go  
out to Cotter's Creek. Now, before Uncle Ray got back.  
"He was there," Matt said, pulling on his gloves. "He was  
there, he saw it too, but he's no liar. So what the hell happened?"   
  
* *   
  
MANHATTAN.  
11:10 AM WEDNESDAY.   
  
Maria Chavez steepled her fingers beneath her chin. "All right,  
what does he think it is this time? The Rosicrucians? Elvis? Jim  
Morrison? The six thousand Kennedy assassins?"  
Elisa couldn't quite meet her boss' gaze. "Aliens."  
"Aliens."  
"That's what he said in the message. Alien artifacts, and the  
government trying to cover it up."  
"Of course. I should have guessed. The Martians have landed  
in Little Hole, Vermont."  
"Little Hollow," Elisa corrected, thinking that this was how  
Matt felt all the time, with everyone looking at him like he was nuts.  
The really funny part was that she was the one having to present his  
crazy ideas with a straight face.  
"Please, Elisa. I know you've run into some weird stuff over  
the past few years, but I wouldn't expect you to buy into this."  
"Hey, Captain, I'm not saying _I_ believe it! But Matt _is_  
missing. Whether he was abducted by saucer people, or the government  
made him disappear doesn't matter. All I know is that Edie called me  
this morning in tears. He went out last night to the market, which must  
have been when he called me, and never came back. She's on her own  
with Matt's family -- that would make anybody cry -- and you know he's  
cut way down on these wacky crusades of his since he got married."  
"You're right about that, at least," she admitted. "But I can't  
have you running off to podunk nowhere looking for him."  
"He's my partner!"  
"We've got a lot of big cases on our hands. The screwdriver  
murderer --"  
"Peterson's handling that one."  
"That string of assaults over by --"  
"All done but the paperwork."  
"Elisa," she said, sternly but with a touch of exasperated  
fondness.  
"Okay, okay, I get the picture." She pretended to look out the  
window, then smiled. "You know, Captain, I don't feel so well ..."  
"Don't do this to me, Elisa."  
"Pretty cruddy, as a matter of fact."  
Maria Chavez sat back and folded her arms. "Oh, you do, do  
you?"  
"Yeah. Maybe I should take a few days off to get over it."  
She heaved a resigned sigh. "Maybe you should. Get some  
fresh air, why don't you?"  
"Gee, thanks, Captain, I think I will!" Elisa winked as she  
sauntered out of the office.  
She breezed through the last of the paperwork, made a  
lackadaisical effort to tidy up her half of the desk before her shift  
ended, and finally headed out. As she turned up the collar of her jacket  
against the cold wind, she saw a man leaning against her car.  
"Move along or I'll cite you for loitering," she threatened with  
a mock glower.  
Rick Alvarez grinned at her. "You do that and I'll have to  
ticket your car. You're illegally parked."  
"The hell you say!"  
"The hell I don't!" He kicked snow off the curb to reveal about  
three inches of red under her front bumper.  
"Oh, right, who cares in this weather? What are you doing out  
here anyway? I thought you were on duty."  
His grin widened, showing Crest-commercial teeth. He had  
gorgeous golden-coffee skin, smoldering dark brown and thick black  
hair, and was the best-looking cop to walk through the doors of the 23rd  
since Jason Canmore. "Sick leave. Seems there's this bug going  
around."  
"No you don't! I'm taking care of this!"  
"And I'm going with you."  
"Matt's my partner. That makes him my problem."  
"When you were gone all those months, who do you think  
worked with him?"  
"Yeah, okay, but --"  
"But nothing. I'm going. The only question is whether I'm  
riding with you or taking my car. You want to be ecologically sound,  
don't you, Maza?"  
She thrust her fists deeper into the pockets of her jacket.  
"Listen, Rick, I'd really rather handle this on my own."  
"The lone wolf routine. Yeah. Been there, done that. Having  
someone around to watch your back never hurts. You shouldn't go it  
alone."  
"I wasn't exactly planning on going alone ..."  
He looked at her with unnerving directness. "I don't mind  
having a gargoyle or two tag along."  
"What ... how?" she sputtered.  
"I'm not just another pretty face," he teased. "All this and  
brains too."  
"Remarks like that make me wonder if it's really my back  
you'll be watching, or a few inches further down."  
"I'll take that as a yes." He went around to the passenger door  
and waited expectantly.  
She got behind the wheel and thought briefly about just  
peeling out and showering him with snow, then sighed to herself and  
leaned over to unlock the door.   
  
* *   
  
INTERSTATE 91.  
12:35 PM THURSDAY.   
  
"Another McNugget?"  
"Is there any barbeque sauce left?" Elisa asked.  
Alvarez poked through the white bag emblazoned with the  
famous Golden Arches. "No such luck. Only the honey mustard."  
"I'll pass."  
"I can't believe you bought ten boxes." He laughed and shook  
his head. "That poor kid at the drive-thru!"  
"Well, our passenger's going to be hungry when he wakes up."  
"You sure he's okay in the trunk?"  
"Until sunset, anyway. And the added weight helps me keep  
the car from sliding around. Don't they plow the roads up here? I hate  
Vermont."  
"I've heard of people hating a town, but a whole state?" He  
paused, then amended, "unless it's California."  
"Bad memories, that's all." She polished off her shake. "So,  
what'd you think?"  
"Of what?" he asked carefully.  
She shot him a sidelong glance. "The new developments on  
Melrose Place, what do you _think_ I'm talking about?"  
"They're really amazing. Not all that ugly, once you get used to  
it. But I don't think the big guy, Goliath, liked me. He kept looking at  
me like he was going to bite my head off."  
"He's not exactly wild about the fact that you're coming with  
me on this goose chase."  
"Why not?"  
She shrugged. "Don't know. I keep telling him that trust has to  
be a vital part of any marriage ..."  
Rick Alvarez sucked most of a french fry down his windpipe  
and for a moment Elisa was afraid she'd have to pull over and give him  
the Heimlich. He coughed harshly into his cupped hand, then turned  
watering eyes upon her. "Marriage?" he choked out.  
She raised her left hand from the steering wheel and showed  
him her ring, in a crennelated style like the walls of a castle. "'Til death  
do us part."  
"I bet that's a long story. I'd like to hear it."  
"Sure," she chuckled. "You got about six weeks?"  
"I'd have to check my calendar. But we've got a few hours until  
we hit this town."  
"You'll think I'm crazy."  
"Hey, I was partnered with Matt for a while, remember?"  
"Touche." She took a deep breath and began. "It all started the  
night I got a call about a disturbance at the Aerie Building ..."   
  
* *   
  
LITTLE HOLLOW, VERMONT.  
5:00 PM THURSDAY.   
  
" ... to get bread and milk." Gladys Bluestone shrugged and  
raised her hands palm-up in a helpless gesture. "When he didn't come  
home for supper, I started to get worried. We called around a few  
places --"  
"The tavern," her sister-in-law Lucy put in cattily.  
"I'm sure his cousin Jack would have seen him if he'd been at  
the tavern," Gladys shot back.  
"We called the store," Edie said, focusing on Elisa while the  
older Bluestone wives glared at each other. "They said he hadn't been  
there at all!"  
"Hmm." Elisa looked over at Matt's uncle, who had remained  
as silent and dour-looking as that farmer in the American Gothic  
painting. "Did anyone go into town to look for him?"  
"Ray did take the truck in," Lucy admitted when her husband  
showed no sign of speaking. If not for the way his eyes shifted to follow  
the conversation, Elisa could have believed he was a taxidermy project.  
"But he didn't see any sign of Matt or his car."  
"Okay," Elisa said. "That all pretty much goes along with what  
you told me on the phone, Edie. If I could take a look around while  
we're waiting for Officer Alvarez to get back ..."  
"Why?" It was the first word out of Ray Bluestone's mouth,  
and he bit it off as sharp as a celery stalk. She could almost hear the  
crisp crunch.  
"Just to see if I can find anything that might tell me where  
Matt's gone," she said easily, but his sudden suspicion gave her the  
crazy idea that maybe this guy had killed Matt with a pitchfork and  
buried him out in the south forty.  
"I can show you our room," Edie offered, levering herself out  
of her chair.  
Elisa watched her with mingled humor and envy, the latter of  
which took her by surprise. Seemed like lately everyone was hinting,  
consciously or not, about babies. Hudson and her mom were the most  
overt, though even Xanatos was getting in on it.  
They left the spacious farmhouse kitchen and started up the  
stairs. Behind them, Elisa heard Matt's uncle's voice. She couldn't make  
out the words, but evidently he had plenty to say _now_, and she didn't  
need to hear the words to get the general gist.  
"Are you okay here?" she murmured in an undertone to Edie.  
"If you want to come back with Rick and me ..."  
"Not without Matt."  
"Are you sure? He might not come back right away."  
"I waited a long time for him," she said with that weird  
enigmatic inner peace that Elisa had never been able to get a handle on.  
"But staying here, with these people --"  
Edie turned her dark, dark eyes on Elisa. "If Goliath were  
missing, would you go home?"  
Elisa sighed. "No, of course not. But if you change your mind,  
you'll call, won't you?"  
"I will," she promised. "Here, this is our room. I don't know  
what you're hoping to find, though."  
"Me either." She skimmed her gaze around. "You said he  
seemed strange on Tuesday, but I got the idea you didn't want to go into  
it on the phone. What's the story?"  
"He did seem strange. Jumpy, distracted, as if he had some  
huge secret he badly wanted to tell but couldn't, full of nervous energy.  
Even his mother commented on it, how he didn't seem able to sit still.  
She said he was worse than the children -- Peggy's and Jack's families  
were here -- and sent him to the store to get him out from underfoot."  
"I've seen him like that," Elisa nodded. "Usually when he's hot  
on the trail. Drives me nuts!"  
Edie smiled. "He says the same of you."  
"I bet! He still hasn't forgiven me for keeping the gargoyles a  
secret for so long, or not getting in touch when I was on that world tour.  
It's not like I didn't try! He's the one who never erases his answering  
machine tape! Hey, what's with the hat?"  
"That's part of it. I saw it Monday night. He had it hidden in  
our suitcase and said he found it in the attic. It was his father's hat. He  
thinks his father was murdered, and people tried to cover it up. He also  
thinks his father saw something in the woods, something he wasn't  
supposed to see, and that's why he was killed. He even went out to the  
woods Monday afternoon. It was dark by the time he got back, and he  
was a mess, but that was when I noticed his change in mood. I can't help  
but wonder if he saw something, too."  
"The message he left me was about aliens," Elisa said slowly.  
"I wonder if that's what he thinks it was? But that's impossible!"  
"More things in heaven and earth, Elisa. You should know that  
better than anybody!"  
"Yeah, but there's a long story behind why I have a hard time  
believing Matt's chasing aliens, or that the government is after him."  
"Except that now he's gone." Edie went to the window, her lips  
trembling. She traced a few Greek letters in the frosted pane.  
"We'll find him." She lowered her voice to a whisper.  
"Speaking of which, I've got Bronx in the trunk of my car, and he's  
going to be waking up any minute. If Rick doesn't get back soon with  
my car, the people of Little Hollow are going to get the fright of their  
lives!"   
  
* *   
  
LOST DOG WOODS.  
3:10 PM MONDAY (FLASHBACK).   
  
He wasn't expecting to find anything.  
Which was why it came as such a profound shock when he did.  
Matt was soaked to the skin, cold, muddy, miserable, and  
wanting nothing more than a hot shower, a change of clothes, and a big  
bowl of his mother's chicken soup. But all of his complaints were  
rendered instantly insignificant when he reached the top of the mound,  
looked down into the crater, and saw what was floating there.  
One of his college roommates had been a role-playing gamer  
who seemed to spend most of his time sitting around a table covered  
with maps, rule books, soda cans, fast food wrappers, and funny-shaped  
dice. A lot of the dice tended to make their way to the floor, where Matt  
never failed to step on them. The worst were the "d4's", but the "d8"  
came in a close second on the pain-o-meter.  
The object floating two feet above the muddy floor of the  
crater looked like a "d8," minus the numbers and a heck of a lot bigger.  
The shape was a sort of solid diamond, two four-sided pyramids joined  
together by the base.  
It was about the size of a football, and a rhythmic cycle of light  
pulsed from its crystalline depths. Green-gold-red, green-gold-red, like  
a traffic signal. It hovered there in complete defiance of gravity,  
rotating slowly, emitting a faint hum that changed pitch with each  
change of color.  
Matt felt like he had when he'd first seen a gargoyle up close,  
or when he'd finally contacted the Illuminati. Two-thirds exhilarated  
vindication, one-third vague disappointment that the search was over.  
He slipped and slid down the side of the crater, getting even  
more wet, cold, and muddy but not caring. To think he was actually  
standing upon the site of a UFO crash! Looking at a genuine alien  
artifact!  
It kept up its cycle of light and humming as he approached. He  
saw that the ground beneath it was completely dry, free of snow, free of  
even any fallen leaves. Matt stripped off his gloves and reached out  
slowly.  
Cold, cold, cold, and then as his hands came within ten inches  
of the object, they encountered warm, dry air. It hadn't been a gradual  
warming but a clear dividing line where the cold just _wasn't_ anymore.  
It was warm but not hot, like holding his hands just at the right comfort  
zone above a campfire.  
Now he wasn't wishing he could talk to Edie or Elisa. Now he  
was wishing for Lexington, who had turned into quite the science  
fiction glutton over the past couple of years. Lex would know what this  
thing was, or at least have some creative guesses.  
He passed his hand over it, then under it. No wires. No  
apparent means of support. The object didn't so much as wobble, either.  
As he was about to touch it, he paused, thinking of all the  
movies he'd seen where some slimy alien seedling erupted from a pod  
onto the curious human's face. But he had no sense of danger from this  
humming, glowing crystal. At the worst, it might be too hot to handle.  
It wasn't. The surface was as warm and dry as the air around it,  
and the cycle didn't alter as he ran his fingers down the flat planes.  
There was a tingle, like a pager set on "vibrate," and that was all. He  
gave it an experimental pull and found resistance with slight give.  
Matt sat back on his heels, started to run his hands through his  
hair, and then realized he was still wearing his father's hat. Good thing  
Mom hadn't seen him come down from the attic; she would have had a  
kitty.  
"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?" he  
asked himself.  
The object didn't react to the sound of his voice either.  
"Because, if you are," he continued, "you're out of your mind.  
You don't know what kind of radiation this thing might be throwing off,  
and you've got a pregnant wife at home!"  
But it was proof, dammit! This, plus the Polaroids, were proof  
that his father had witnessed an event, and that the event was still going  
on. This "d8" might be the key to unlocking the truth around his father's  
death! He owed it to Dad, to Mom, to himself, and even to the baby, to  
find out what had really happened.  
Matt settled both hands firmly around the angled sides of the  
object and began a slow, steady pull.   
  
* *   
  
LITTLE HOLLOW, VERMONT.  
5:45 PM THURSDAY.   
  
Even as she mentioned it, Elisa heard the Fairlane's distinctive  
growl and the grinding of gravel beneath tires. She looked out the  
window and saw Rick Alvarez baby her car into a spot between Ray  
Bluestone's pickup and Matt's mom's boxy little Volvo.  
"He's a looker, isn't he?" Edie observed.  
"Heartthrob of the station," Elisa grinned, and hurried for the  
stairs.  
She reached the bottom just as Lucy Bluestone opened the  
door, and supressed a laugh at the way the dowdy farmer's wife gaped  
up at six-feet-two-inches of dark and handsome. Her laugh died on its  
own when Ray came out of the kitchen and his mouth drew so tight that  
it seemed to disappear.  
"Hey, Elisa, your car's making funny noises," Rick said  
casually. "I think something's loose in the trunk."  
"I'll check it out," she announced, hastily, before Matt's uncle  
could volunteer. As if he would. She followed Rick back outside.  
"Good thing you parked over here. No chance they can see us out the  
kitchen windows."  
"Why, what did you have in mind?" He flashed her a bright  
smile.  
"Don't start, okay? Words to the wise. Don't start. What'd you  
find in town?"  
His smile turned into a grimace that made his words a lie.  
"Real nice."  
"So, you got the red-carpet treatment too."  
"Yeah, people like us are fine as long as they stay in their  
place, and that place is the inner city."  
"Matt always said it was a white-bread sort of town, a real  
Sunday-dinner culture where you can bet that at six o'clock sharp on  
Sundays everyone's sitting down together for a big meal of meatloaf or  
roast chicken. And pie for dessert."  
"Makes you wonder if they even _have_ television, or they're  
still listening to radio programs from the 1940's."  
"No kidding. " She reached her car and unlocked the trunk.  
"Hmruf!" Bronx grunted, slobbering a wide trail up her face.  
"Gak! Bronx! Quit it!" She held his head away from her. He  
bounded eagerly, making the rear tires wax and wane. "Come on, out,  
before you break something!"  
Behind the barn, Elisa set out the cold repast from McD's and  
stepped back while Bronx messily devoured nine 20-piece boxes of  
nuggets and a bag of cheeseburgers.  
"I did find out a few things in town," Rick said. "I've got two  
witnesses who remember seeing Matt go into the store and come out  
with a bag, then stop at the pay phone. The bad news is, one of the  
witnesses happens to be the world's oldest man --"  
"People can be old and still with it," Elisa interrupted, thinking  
primarily of Halcyon Renard.  
"You can talk to him next time, then. The only reason drool  
wasn't dripping off his chin was because his long white beard soaked it  
up first. The other witness was his five-year-old grandson. The kid says  
he looked back and saw Matt talking to some people in a black car. I  
found a few others in town who remember seeing a black car. Out of  
state plates, but the thing that really seemed to make it stand out was  
that the people in it were a black man and a white woman."  
"What about the clerk?"  
"The clerk swears Matt didn't come in the store all day."  
  
* *   
  
LITTLE HOLLOW, VERMONT.  
4:45 PM TUESDAY (FLASHBACK).   
  
Matt tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear while he  
dug his calling card out of his wallet. He punched in all the requisite  
numbers and drummed his fingers impatiently on the shelf under the  
coin return. The bread and milk, his convenient excuse for making a run  
into town, were in a bag at his feet.  
"Come on, Elisa, pick up," he urged, even though he knew the  
odds weren't in his favor. Sunset was still an hour away, so even if she  
was home, she was most likely asleep.  
He sighed and fumed as he heard Elisa's recorded voice begin  
the leave-a-message spiel. Just his luck. He should have tried her last  
night, but he didn't want to make the call from the house, especially not  
now that his cousins Peggy and Jack had turned up with their flocks of  
kids. And he didn't want to call her at the castle and have to dance  
clumsily with Owen Burnett or (worse!) Xanatos.  
He turned his face out of the cold damp breath of the wind and  
saw a black car, an older sedan, was rolling slowly down Main Street.  
New York plates. Glimpse of a young, good-looking black man behind  
the wheel. Wearing a sharp black suit.  
*beep!*  
Matt barely noticed, intent on the sedan while trying not to  
noticeably stare. Belatedly, he started talking. "Elisa, hi, Matt here. I  
know you won't believe me, but I've got evidence, physical evidence, of  
extraterrestrials. I found something in the woods, an artifact of some  
kind. It's in the trunk of my car. And it seems the government has just  
shown up. FBI, maybe, they've got the look --"  
*click!* as the tape ran out.  
Matt cursed and was about to redial when he saw the black car  
slide into a parking space just three down from his car. His car with the  
surprise hidden next to the spare tire.  
The sedan's doors opened. The driver got out on one side, and  
a woman with short dark hair and exquisite legs emerged from the  
other. She was wearing a female version of the black suit, the skirt and  
jacket combo that Matt had always privately found really sexy.  
The woman let a dog out of the sedan. It was an afghan hound,  
beautiful, with silky fur and a long pointed muzzle. The dog took a  
couple of sniffs, then made a beeline for Matt's car.  
He cursed again and headed that way, leaving the phone  
dangling and the grocery bag on the ground. For the moment, they had  
Main Street to themselves except for old Abe Chalmers and one of his  
many descendants.  
The dog was barking excitedly, and the woman had her hand  
pressed to her earring and was nodding for all the world like she  
understood what the dog was saying.  
"Something I can help you with?" Matt asked, feeling less and  
less happy about the situation with each passing moment. He'd thought  
FBI, but now he was having his doubts.  
"Williams, DEA," the man said, showing what looked like  
legit credentials. "We need to ask you a couple of questions --"  
"Oh, please, let's cut the bullshit," Matt said in a low voice.  
"What agency are you really from? CIA? NSA? The Shop? Whichever  
branch covered up the UFO crash here fifteen years ago?"  
Williams glanced at his partner, then smiled winningly.  
"Sounds like you know why we're really here."  
"We don't have time for this," the woman murmured urgently.  
The dog barked once, as if in agreement.  
"You want to try?" Williams offered.  
"Sure." To Matt, she said, "Would you tell us your name,  
please, sir?"  
"Bluestone. Detective, 23rd Precinct, NYPD." He showed  
them his badge, which _was_ legit.  
They exchanged another glance, this one tinged with dismay.  
Matt stifled a smirk and almost felt sorry for them. He decided to poke  
them a little more and mention that he was ex-FBI, but before he could,  
Williams snapped his fingers.  
"You're the gargoyle task force guy!"  
"Can you excuse us a minute?" the woman asked, and the two  
of them stepped back a discreet distance and put their heads close  
together.  
Matt strained to make out snippets of their conversation.  
Her: " ... waiting for? In case you weren't paying attention at  
HQ, time is of the essence here!"  
Him, reluctantly: "You know I don't like using that thing. The  
man's a cop. _I_ was a cop."  
Her, firmly: "Not anymore. Listen, I don't like it either, but we  
don't have a choice."  
Matt decided he really didn't like the way their talk was going,  
and wondered if it would be possible to make a quick exit. He had the  
keys in his pants pocket, his car was only a few feet away ...  
He started to sidle that way, and found the dog between him  
and the driver's side door, looking reproachfully at him with its big  
brown eyes.  
"Okay, Bluestone, we're going to be square with you,"  
Williams said.  
"Sure, Williams, if that's your real name," he shot back.  
"That'll be a first."  
The woman went to the trunk and slapped it with one hand.  
"You've got a standard Sirius-5 decoy beacon in here. If we don't get  
that beacon set up again, pronto, we'll be putting out a welcome mat for  
the Korinians."  
"And these Korinians, I take it, aren't the good guys," Matt  
said, crossing his arms and leaning against his car.  
"Picture something that looks like a cross between a scorpion  
and Freddy Kruger --" Williams began.  
"Like this, you mean?" Matt, knowing that he was being an  
insufferable smartass and yet helpless to stop himself, pulled out the  
Polaroids and shuffled through them until he got to the one that showed  
an alien appendage hanging out of the wreckage.  
"Where's you get these?" the woman asked, alarmed.  
"Found them. Their ship crashed here, right? And you're trying  
to keep the rest of the fleet from finding out about it and coming to  
wipe us out." He could not believe he was having this conversation in  
front of the mom-and-pop grocery in Little Hollow.  
"How many people did you tell about it?" she demanded.  
Matt shook his head. "You think I'm going to tell you and have  
you go after them too? You think I don't know how it works?" His  
voice rose and turned distinctly venomous. "A car wreck, right? Make it  
look like an accident. Burn up the body so the coroner can't --"  
He got no further, because the woman whipped a futuristic  
weapon out of her jacket and pointed it at him. Her tone was  
incongruously polite. "Answer the question, please, detective. Don't  
make me boil your eyes out of your head."  
"She'll do it," Williams told Matt. "I can't stop her when she  
gets like this."  
Matt looked at the weapon. He had no idea what it was or how  
it worked, but he was very sure that the bad end was aimed at his face.  
He was also pretty sure that the woman was bluffing. He and Elisa had  
played this game plenty of times themselves.  
"Shoot me with that thing and you still won't get an answer.  
Stalemate."  
"Think so? A Korinian battle cruiser could be getting ready to  
turn this town into a mushroom cloud while you stand there being Mr.  
Tough Guy. You think I'm going to let that happen rather than zap you  
right now and deal with anyone you might have told later?"  
"You go, girl," Williams said admiringly.  
"Okay," Matt sighed. "Okay. I haven't told anyone. I didn't  
want to put my family in danger, and there's nobody else here I trust  
that much." He tossed Williams the keys. "Go ahead and take your  
doohickey. Save the world and all that good stuff."  
Williams opened the trunk. The dog got up on its hind legs,  
tail wagging frantically, pawing at the other items as Williams lifted  
them out of the way. He uncovered the beacon, still pulsing in its  
mellow cycle of green-gold-red.  
When the device was resting on the backseat of the black  
sedan, with the dog standing over it like a protective mother, the woman  
flipped open a pair of sunglasses and nodded at Williams. "Do it."  
Sunglasses? Late on a cloudy afternoon?  
Williams sighed, shook his head, and put on a pair of his own.  
"Detective, thanks for all your cooperation." He reached inside his suit  
jacket.  
Matt tensed, expecting Williams to pull another weird weapon,  
but all he took out was a metal thing that looked like a tire pressure  
gauge. "What's that thing?"  
"If you'll look right here, we'll take care of all your questions."  
"Yeah, right," Matt said, and then red light filled the world.   
  
* *   
  
LOST DOG WOODS.  
7:40 PM THURSDAY.   
  
"We're really not dressed for this. You didn't tell me we'd be  
hiking halfway across the state."  
"You invited yourself along, so don't come crying to me,"  
Elisa said. She was none too warm either, but kept reminding herself of  
her brief visit to Norway. Now, _that_ had been cold!  
Rick blew into his cupped hands. His leather gloves were  
better than nothing, but this was a damp seeping cold that went through  
everything. "Shouldn't we be doing this in the morning? We're not  
going to find anything in the dark."  
"Our secret weapon won't be much use in the morning." Elisa  
thumped Bronx on the side and he chuffed happily at her. "Go on, boy.  
Find Matt."  
"If he _is_ out here ..." Rick began, then trailed off.  
"I know," Elisa said grimly. Any of a thousand mundane  
misfortunes could have befallen Matt. Broken leg. Shot by an off-  
season poacher. And, of course, the ever-popular thought she'd had  
before, that he'd been killed by Mr. American Gothic.  
Bronx snuffled through the snow and half-melted slush,  
wagging his big head slowly back and forth. He made a couple of false  
starts, then his little tail started flapping and he bounded deeper into the  
woods.  
"He's got something!" Elisa cried unnecessarily.  
She and Rick followed Bronx to a creek that was iced-over at  
the edges. Rick beamed his flashlight along the creek and they both  
looked, neither saying what they feared/expected to see but looking for  
it anyway -- a blue and bloated corpse wedged against a rock.  
"Whew," Elisa breathed when Bronx hurdled the creek and  
picked up the trail on the other side.  
Rick jumped over, then turned back to her with a flirty  
chagrined look. "Or should I have let the lady go first?"  
"Ha, ha." She jumped too, slipped, and wound up in his arms.  
He wasn't as strong as Goliath, but then, who was? He held her  
for maybe a heartbeat too long before setting her securely on her feet.  
"There you go."  
"I don't need this," she muttered under her breath.  
"What?"  
"Nothing. Which way did Bronx go?"  
They caught up with Bronx at the bottom of a rise. He was  
sniffing around in a big circle, making inquisitive whines and rumbles  
in the back of his throat.  
"Uh-oh," Elisa said. "I think he lost the trail."  
Bronx glanced in their direction, sniffed some more, then  
started up the rise. When he reached the top, he looked down, looked  
back at Elisa, and said, "Hrrrf!"  
"Guess he didn't." She climbed up, Rick right behind her,  
determined not to slip again because she was sure that under the guise  
of being helpful he'd put a hand on her butt to help her along. "Oh,  
come on, Bronx, you've got to be kidding!"  
On the other side of the rise was a deep gulley, filled with the  
most vicious tangle of dead splintery branches and thornbushes Elisa  
had ever seen.  
"If he fell in there, you'd think it would show somewhere,"  
Rick said, scanning it with the flashlight. "A freshly-broken place, cloth  
caught on the thorns, blood, something."  
"Matt!" Elisa called.  
No answer, not that she was expecting one. She looked at  
Bronx. "Okay, what now?"  
Bronx whined and poked his nose toward the gulley.  
"No way. I am not crawling around in there." She kicked a  
rock and heard it clatter. "I'd be so full of holes you could use me for a  
showerhead."  
"Hey, that's weird," Rick murmured.  
"What?"  
"The rock. Where'd it go?"  
"Down into the thorns, where else would it go?"  
"Yeah, but I didn't see it."  
"Do you want me to do it again so you can watch?" Elisa  
asked, slightly exasperated.  
"Sure."  
Sighing, she hunted around and found a nice big chunk of  
stone, and shotputted it neatly into the gulley. Rick followed it with the  
light.  
Kritch! was what they heard as it snapped branches, but what  
they saw was another matter entirely. They saw the stone go through as  
if it was dropped into a pool of opaque water, and vanish without a  
ripple.  
They looked at each other, neither wanting to be the first to say  
anything.  
Bronx broke the weird silence by galumphing down. Elisa  
winced, waiting for his yowls of pain as the thorns bit his tough  
gargoyle-hide, but all the heard was the godawful crunching and  
crashing of his passage.  
He went through and was gone, with no burst of broken bits,  
no Bronx-shaped hole. Just the tangle, unmarked. And from somewhere  
within, his surprised "murf!"  
"Bronx!" Elisa cried.  
Bronx stuck his head out. A branch seemed to pass cleanly  
through his neck, but he was completely unhurt.  
"It's a ... hologram or something ... isn't it?" Rick said.  
"I'm going down there," Elisa declared. Before she could have  
second thoughts, she swung her legs down and felt for a sturdy-looking  
piece of wood.  
"Puh-leez, B'rer Fox, don' throw me inna briar patch!" Rick  
chuckled.  
"Shut up." Her eyes told her she was touching it, but her foot  
felt nothing. As she pushed it further down, she saw her shoe swallowed  
by a branch, and still felt nothing.  
She slid further down, steeling herself as the sharp thorns  
neared her legs, but there was no piercing bite, nothing at all. Branches  
snapped and crackled and popped like a giant's bowl of Rice Krispies,  
but Elisa was untouched.  
She passed through, losing her balance because one foot came  
down on the big rock she'd dropped, and landed next to Bronx. He  
eagerly butted his head into her side, proud of himself.  
"Are you okay, Elisa?"  
"Fine! It's -- oh, my God!" Her mouth fell open as Bronx  
moved and she got a good look at her new surroundings.  
A greyish dome crisscrossed with paler lines curved overhead,  
the underside of the thorn patch. She couldn't see the flashlight from  
down here, but the place was far from dark. Something pulsed green-  
gold-red, something that hung easily and effortlessly a few inches off  
the dry ground and emitted a gently cycling hum.  
  
* *   
  
MANHATTAN.  
8:00 PM THURSDAY.   
  
"There's got to be an explanation," L said.  
J (known in some circles as Williams or a variety of other  
aliases) set a cup of coffee beside her and sipped from his own. "These  
thirty-seven hour days, damn, I don't know if I'll ever get used to it." He  
dropped his voice to mimic Zed. "Or else I'll have a psychotic episode."  
"You could be helping me out here. What are we going to do  
about that guy?"  
Sirius, who had been snoozing under J's desk, suddenly sprang  
up. The only resemblance between the afghan hound that had  
accompanied them to Vermont and the creature that now raced across  
headquarters was the long, pointed muzzle.  
She was a thing of beauty as she ran, looking like a cross  
between a Chinese dragon and a greyhound, with a sleek serpentine  
body, long legs, and fine iridescent scales. A spiky mane, shimmering  
with all the colors of the rainbow, surrounded her head and extended in  
a line along her back to form a banner of a tail.  
"Hello, Sirius, there's my girl!" a man said as she frisked  
around his black-suited legs. He scratched her mane. "Miss me?"  
"Hey, B, how was the conference?" J called.  
He rolled his eyes. "Ever been trapped in a room full of  
Mimasites and Ionians? In Topeka, Kansas, no less? I started  
wondering if it was clinically possible to die of boredom. The only time  
things got lively was when Prince Txlpp of Mimas called the Ionian  
Grand Admiral a sour gasbag."  
"Well, he is," L remarked distractedly.  
"Yes, but we don't comment on it in public." B sat down and  
stretched out his legs. "Good to be home. Anything go on while I was  
away?"  
"Yeah, we've got kind of a situation here," J said. "Ever run  
into anybody immune to the flashie thing?"  
B straighened up. "Immune to the neuralyzer?"  
His voice was loud enough to catch Zed's attention, and the  
bearded boss man came scowling over to their desks. "The subject was  
human, wasn't he?"  
"His bioscan comes up pure human," L said, bristling at Zed's  
I'm-dealing-with-kids tone.  
J nodded. "_And_ the thing is in perfect working order. Had it  
checked out first thing. But this guy, it just didn't faze him. I flashed it,  
he blinks for a minute then says, 'and what the hell is that supposed to  
be?' I tried it again, still zip, so L nailed him with a stasis dart."  
"Lucky I had one with me," she added. "We didn't know what  
else to do with him, so we stuck him in the back seat and brought him  
home with us. Left his car in a parking garage. We couldn't leave him;  
he knew too much."  
"So what do you think, B, Zed? You know I don't like using  
that damn flashie thing, going to fry someone's head or give them  
cancer, but --"  
"We rely on it in the field," L finished.  
"We all do," Zed frowned. "We've never run into an immune  
human before --"  
"Excuse me, Zed?" B broke in. "Actually, we have, and I can  
tell you why it happened."  
"Go ahead, B."  
He swiveled L's computer around and started typing. An image  
came up of a famous and instantly recognizeable university. "Back in  
the early sixties, a professor named Gustav Sevarius was conducting  
experiments with memory. He was trying to create eidetics."  
"Eidetics, hmm, interesting," J mused thoughtfully, stroking  
his chin.  
L poked him in the side. "People with perfect photographic  
memory, fuzzbrain."  
He winked at her and snapped his teeth playfully, but then saw  
how Zed was glowering at him and subsided. He knew it bugged Zed no  
end that he and L spiced up their partnership with the occasional extra-  
curricular activity. But then, it still bugged Zed that L was here at all.  
The old boys' network was falling apart as the originals retired, and the  
ranks were filled with increasingly younger and more with-it people. L  
was the first woman to wear the suit, but J doubted that she'd be the last.  
B cleared his throat. "Sevarius enlisted students from the  
university's Ed/Psych program to participate in the project, offering  
them $250 each. Plus, if the experiment worked ... well, photographic  
memory to a student, think about it."  
"Read a book once and it's imprinted forever," L said. "I can  
see the attraction."  
"So what happened?" J asked. "Was the mad doctor  
successful?"  
"The Mad Doctor was what they called Sevarius' colleague,  
Dr. Wanless," B corrected.  
"Wanless ... He was associated with the Shop, wasn't he?" Zed  
asked.  
"The Shop." J shuddered extravagantly, not entirely kidding.  
"Those guys give me a major case of the creeps. I'd almost rather face  
another Bug."  
"Now, now," Zed chided, tapping his eye-and-pyramid lapel  
pin. "We're all part of the same big happy family."  
"Yeah, like that family on Dynasty," L muttered. "Everyone  
trying to backstab each other, nobody knowing what the others are up  
to."  
"That's another problem," J said. "Check this out." He passed  
Zed an object only slightly large than a credit card, its surface a deep  
glossy black. On one side was an outline of a thumb-shape in streaky  
reds and blues like aura photography, and on the other was a gold  
triangular outline with a hologramatic eye floating in the middle.  
Zed made a disgusted sound. "Wonderful. He's with the main  
office."  
"Could they be responsible for his immunity?" L wondered.  
"No," Zed said firmly. "B, excuse the interruption, what were  
you saying?"  
"Thank you, Zed," B said impatiently. "There were a dozen  
students in Sevarius' final project. The possible side-effects -- high  
blood pressure, akasthesia, mental aberrations -- all seemed like  
acceptable risks."  
"Don't keep us in suspense. What happened?" L asked.  
"Four of the students died in the lab," B said flatly.  
"Complications from the drug. Three others committed suicide within  
the next year because they remembered _everything_ and they couldn't  
deal with it. The remaining five had varying degrees of success. Several  
years later, one of them was exposed to the neuralyzer, without effect."  
"What happened to the guy?" J asked.  
"We had to give him a job," Zed said, laughing and clapping B  
on the shoulder.  
"That can't be what happened to this guy, though," L said.  
"He's too young. Unless they've continued these projects?"  
"Sevarius left the university shortly after," B said. "He may  
have started up somewhere else, but he'd have to be almost eighty by  
now. If he's still alive."  
"Damn," L sighed. "So that still doesn't explain our friend  
Detective Bluestone."  
J looked at B. "You okay? You just jumped like the devil  
tweaked your nuts."  
Zed's face bespoke sudden comprehension. "Of course! I  
should have realized --"  
"Realized what?" J asked.  
"He's my son," B said.   
  
* *   
  
LOST DOG WOODS, VERMONT.  
8:10 PM THURSDAY.   
  
"Jalapena," Elisa said. "I owe Matt an apology."  
"He's really found something this time," Rick agreed, unable to  
take his eyes off the device. "That is not of this world."  
They were crouched in the crater, the sketchy dome that  
formed the underside of the illusory thorn brambles curving overhead.  
She shook her head. "Matt's message said he had an artifact in  
the trunk of his car. If this is the same one, that means somebody had to  
put it back."  
"Our friends in the black car."  
"That'd be my first guess. How'd they _know_, though? Either  
they're keeping the area under surveillance, or there's some sort of  
alarm hooked up to that thing."  
"And what is it, anyway?"  
"Right now, all I want to do is get out of here and find Matt. I  
don't want to move that thing, or even touch it."  
"Yeah, but if it _is_ hooked up to an alarm, triggering it might  
be the only way to find the people in the black car."  
"No way," Elisa said firmly. "Then we'd just have three cops  
missing, and nobody left crazy enough to believe any of it."  
"So what are we going to do?"  
"Until we get some other leads, I don't think there's anything  
we _can_ do." She stood and brushed the dirt from the seat of her jeans.  
"Except make sure Edie's okay, and see if we can turn up Matt's car."  
"You mean, just walk away? An alien device right here in front  
of us, and you want to forget all about it?"  
"I wish I could," she said. "There's enough weirdness in my  
life already, thank you very much."   
  
* *   
  
MANHATTAN.  
9:25 PM THURSDAY.   
  
" ... lightshow didn't impress me, so what do you think _that's_  
going to do?" Matt finished, and then realized that he wasn't where he  
thought he was.  
Instead of the slushy twilight streets of Little Hollow, he was  
looking at a stark room with white walls, a large mirror, tiles so shiny  
that Mr. Clean would be proud, and no furnishings except for the  
dentist's style recliner he was in and a plain grey chair that brought  
computer workstations to mind.  
He cast a quick glance around for trays of surgical tools and  
alien probes, saw nothing, and only relaxed a fraction. He was in the  
same clothes, but a check turned up his wallet and badge both missing.  
"Okay, game's over!" he snapped, because they were watching  
and listening, sure they were. He got out of the chair and walked over to  
the mirror, tapping on the glass like a kid trying to annoy fish in a tank.  
He heard the clicking of an electronic lock and turned toward  
the only door, ready to fly into a righteously indignant tirade.  
A man in a black suit stepped in. "Hello, Matt."  
Everything he'd been about to say flew out of his mind, but  
that was okay because he didn't trust his mouth to form coherent speech.  
"You're looking well," the man said.  
"You're going to be a grandfather," Matt heard himself say,  
and then everything clicked back into reality so hard it almost hurt. He  
didn't doubt, didn't question, not for an instant.  
He advanced, and the man opened his arms as if anticipating a  
hug, and Matt slugged him square in the jaw.  
There was a brief stir behind the glass as John Bluestone  
stumbled backward, tripped over the computer chair, and fell into it,  
rolling back to bump into the wall. He raised one incredulous hand to  
his jaw and blinked at his son.  
"Damn you!" Matt roared so loud that it would have done  
credit to Goliath. "Fifteen years! You left us for fifteen years! Maybe it  
was easier for Mom, thinking you were dead, but I wanted the truth!"  
The door hissed open again, and the guy called Williams and  
his partner rushed in. John Bluestone waved them back. They went, but  
warily.  
"Matt, you don't understand --"  
"Yes, I do," and now his voice was arctic. "You ditched us to  
become a goverment agent, chasing UFOs and covering up the truth  
from the feeble-minded public."  
"I had no choice."  
"Yeah, right, file that one next to 'I was just following orders.'"  
"As an Illuminatus, you should know better than that."  
Matt started to come back sharply, but fell into a heated,  
frustrated silence. Had him there, actually. Once the Illuminati chose  
you, there was no way out.  
John Bluestone's eyes captured and held his son's. "The men  
who work for this organization were tracking that craft, but it changed  
course at the last moment before the crash. They weren't able to reach  
the site before your uncle and cousin and I did. We'd already seen too  
much. Thanks to one of these --" he held up the tire-pressure thing  
Williams had flashed at him "-- they were able to wipe Ray and Ray  
Jr.'s memories. It didn't work on me. They didn't realize it right away,  
but once they did, they only had two options. Kill me, or recruit me."  
"So you faked your own death," Matt said bitterly.  
"I had to, because the moment I accepted, John Bluestone  
ceased to exist. It was easier that way, for you and your mother."  
"You don't know squat about what was easy for us!"  
"Yes, I do! I've kept an eye on you both, even though I'm not  
supposed to. It's one of the more frequently bent rules around here, but  
we generally look the other way. I know you had some hard times, but  
imagine how it would have been for your mother to think I'd walked out  
on her."  
"We could have kept quiet."  
"That's not the way it works, Matt."  
"If you wanted to keep it a secret so bad, why did you leave  
your photos in the attic? You must have known that someone would  
find them."  
"I hid them up there before I got the job offer, and then  
everything moved so fast there wasn't time to mention them. I figured  
they'd go unnoticed. Your uncle never went up there more than was  
necessary, and even if he had found them, he would have thought they  
were phonies. I knew you didn't care for the home place, so I didn't  
think you'd ever go poking around the attic."  
"If you have been keeping tabs on us, you must have known  
that I could be trusted," Matt said.  
"Until a few years ago, you were a conspiracy hound," his  
father pointed out. "Everybody who knew you also knew that you were  
on a crusade to expose secret societies and government cover-ups. You  
weren't in the habit of keeping your mouth shut, Matty."  
He flushed, feeling regressed to about age ten. No matter how  
clever young Matt had thought he was being, his dad could always see  
right through him.  
"I suppose you expect me to forgive you."  
"It'd be nice, but no, I don't really expect it. You needed a  
father, and I wasn't there. It doesn't matter why I wasn't. You lost a big  
chunk of your trust that summer. You were always a suspicious child. I  
think it was partly because of how your cousins used to gang up on you,  
and partly because we moved back and forth so much. But after that  
summer, you turned paranoid."  
"I did not!" Matt protested. "Well, maybe a little ... but, damn  
it, everything I thought was going on really _was_! Martin knew it all  
along, and he let me blunder around like a moron. Now you're in on it,  
too. Thanks a lot, Dad! I guess all that really matters is what happens  
now. You can't use that flashie thing to zap my brain, can you?"  
"No," he admitted. "You're immune, same as I am. I guess you  
inherited something more than my hair and your mother's eyes."  
"So you've got to kill me."  
"I'm appalled that you'd think I was capable of it."  
"I didn't mean you personally," Matt said scornfully. "This  
outfit probably has its own goon squad for these situations."  
"We're not killers. We're trying to help people."  
"Uh-huh. By keeping them in the dark, hiding the truth, raping  
their memories, yeah, big help! You and your buddies put yourselves in  
charge of deciding what the rest of us can and can't handle --"  
"I'm not going to get baited into an argument with you,  
Matthew. You're being deliberately antagonistic."  
"Then what are you going to do? Recruit me? Fat chance. If  
you think I'm going to abandon my family like you did -- hell, no!  
Screw that!"  
"There's no need to be vulgar."  
Matt glowered. "The fuck there isn't! What are you going to  
do? Wash my mouth out with soap? Take the strop to me the way Uncle  
Ray used to do? In case you haven't noticed, I'm not a kid anymore!"  
"The petulant attitude makes it hard to tell. I'm trying to make  
you a serious job offer, and you're making it extremely difficult."  
"Don't bother. I've got a job. Maybe you could make me  
disappear in a way that would fool Mom and Edie, but you haven't met  
my partner."  
"Would you at least let me show you around? Maybe once  
you've seen what we do here ..."  
"It's not going to happen, Dad. Or am I allowed to call you  
that?"  
"I'm called B," he said absently. "Come on, I'll buy you a cup  
of coffee."  
"I don't want a cup of coffee. What I want is to get out of here  
and home before Edie and Mom call in the National Guard." He looked  
at his watch and did a double take. "Thursday? It's Thursday night? Son  
of a bitch!"  
John Bluestone -- or B -- opened the door. "Since you're late  
already, might as well have that coffee."   
  
* *   
  
THE AERIE BUILDING, MANHATTAN.  
7:10 PM SATURDAY.   
  
"Thanks for lending us Bronx." Elisa sighed as she rested her  
forehead against Goliath's chest. "He was a big help."  
"You look tired, Elisa," Angela observed.  
"So does Bronx," Lexington added, noting that the big blue  
beast barely had the strength to leap up on Hudson with his typical  
vigor.  
"He should be," Rick Alvarez said. "He tromped over half of  
Vermont the past couple of nights."  
"No sign of Matt, though?" Brooklyn asked.  
"No." Elisa looked over at David Xanatos, who stood just  
outside the warm circle of the clan, listening intently. "Don't suppose  
you have anything to contribute to the discussion?"  
He raised a surprised eyebrow. "Me?"  
"Don't give me that," she said. "Last time Matt went missing,  
you knew all about it. So I'd appreciate it if you'd spill the beans."  
"Honestly, detective, this time I am in the dark. I've spoken to  
the Grandmaster, and he doesn't know where to find Bluestone either."  
He looked as innocent as a Xanatos could, without the furtive smirking  
glint of falsehood that Elisa had come to recognize.  
"Maybe I'm more tired than I thought, but I actually believe  
you. Edie's going to stay with Matt's family a while longer. I don't envy  
her! I'd rather visit Aunt Agnes than spend another night listening to  
Matt's uncle recite all the least tolerant verses in the Bible."  
"We've put Matt's car on the hot sheets; maybe that will turn  
up something." Rick yawned. "Sorry. I'm pretty worn out myself."  
"So you didn't find out _anything_?" Lex asked. "What about  
the message he left you? The alien artifact?"  
"It turned out to be an experimental weather sensor," Matt  
Bluestone said, coming into the courtyard. "Not extraterrestrial after  
all."  
A brief, stunned silence was broken by many voices human  
and gargoyle alike, and they crowded toward him.  
"Where'd you come from?" Brooklyn asked when the hubub  
settled.  
"Burnett let me in. Elisa, Rick, can I talk to you for a minute?"  
"Yeah, you'd better talk to us!" Elisa said. "Where have you  
been? We've been going crazy trying to find you!"  
"I can explain everything." He glanced apologetically at the  
gargoyles. "Can you give us a second or two? It's kind of police  
business."  
"Sure," Lex said, sounding a bit hurt.  
"Wonder what the big deal is?" Brooklyn murmured as Matt  
led Elisa and Rick inside.  
"What was that?" Angela cocked her head curiously to the  
side. "Did you see something?"  
"What, lass?"  
"It looked like a red flashbulb."  
* *   
  
EPILOGUE:  
MANHATTAN.  
8:55 PM SATURDAY.   
  
"Here." Matt all but flung the slender device at the man in the  
black suit. "I _never_ want to see that again, let alone use it!"  
"Did you have any problems?" B asked.  
"Besides shooting my friends' brains full of God-knows-  
what?" he said bitterly. "They won't remember anything about glowing  
crystals or hologramatic stickerbushes. As for the others, I told them  
what you wanted me to tell them, that I'd stumbled onto a terrorist plot  
and had to help the FBI. They bought it. At least, the gargoyles did.  
Never can tell with Xanatos."  
"You did a fine job, Matt. Sure you won't reconsider? We'd  
make a great team."  
Matt curled his fist in front of his mouth, exhaled rustily  
through it, and intoned deeply, "Rule the galaxy as father and son?"  
Reverting to normal, he shook his head. "Sorry, Dad. I've got a partner.  
See you around."  
B tucked the neuralyzer into his jacket. "Yes, you will.   
  
* *   
  
The End. 


End file.
